Students learn about the life and music of John Lennon, write a short story from their lives integrating lyrics from some of their favorite songs, and create a class book of stories.

Students use their communication and writing skills as they interview a partner, write an article about them, and create a multimodal presentation to introduce their partner to the class.

Students can utilize this printout to organize their writing as they learn to use the RAFT strategy. This printout enables students to clearly define their role, audience, format, and topic for writing.

This strategy guide introduces the RAFT technique and offers practical ideas for using this technique to teach students to experiment with various perspectives in their writing.

This guide introduces silent conversations, a collaborative learning technique that has students thinking, sharing, and reflecting about important questions—but through writing rather than talk.

Students learn how to get their voice out on the web when they research issues important to them and compose a persuasive podcast to post online.

Students learn that you don't have to raise your voice to raise a point. Writing a persuasive letter to your principal is a great way to get your opinions heard.

Students take a walk on the wild side when they research an animal and create a scavenger hunt activity for their classmates.

How can we convince others to agree with us on important issues? In this lesson, students explore relevant environmental issues and gather information to write persuasive essays.

Students take their ideas from the classroom page to the community pavement when they participate in a service-learning project based on their multimedia presentations.

Lights, camera, action, and a bit of mystery! In this lesson, students use mystery props in a skit bag to create and perform in short, impromptu skits.

With e-pals, students develop real-life writing and social experiences, learn the format of a friendly letter and parts of an e-mail message, and discover other cultures, languages, and geographic areas.

Pop culture and the classroom collide in this lesson when students go behind the scenes to analyze a television series for characterization to use in an original television show proposal.

Past and present come together when students interview their parents and create a skit that compares their parents' experiences as middle schoolers with the students' own lives.

Students read letters from the Gold Rush and follow up by writing an imaginary letter to a family member about their experience using the Letter Generator.

Students make mental "snapshots" of a natural setting, then capture the details of their setting by writing and then creating a class booklet of the nature walk.

Students brainstorm important events and people that might serve as the beginning of an interesting piece of writing. They then use the Bio-Cube to plan their writing and write an essay about a memorable person.

Students review Scieszka's tips for encouraging young people to read and then create their own, sharing ideas with adults in their community through a letter.